Labour Leadership Contest

Lots of thought provoking comments in this thread. I'm not a labour supporter but come from a labour background. I strongly believe that democracy works best when there is a strong opposition party. As I see it the problem Labour have is if Corbyn wins they will be unelectable yet he strikes me as the only candidate who reflects historical labour roots. Unfortinately the last leader who was like that was Michael Foot and look what happened there.
The other candidates are all more pragmatic and realise that to get elected you have to appeal to the wider electorate including the upwardly mobile who want to be encouraged to be wealth creators and understand that they will pay more tax as a result. If they feel though that they will be punished from a taxation perspective they will never vote Labour.

I know some people blame everyone except Labour for the general election defeat but the writing was on the wall in Scotland for a long time and Labour failed to respond even though they must have known the Conservatives would seek to exploit their weakness if they needed the SNP support to win the election. They also failed to convince voters in England.

I think Labout supporters need to decide do they want to be in power or not and elect a leader accordingly.

The real difference between the candidates is burnham, cooper and kendall are only telling the electorate what they want to hear while corbyn is telling them what he really believes in and for that reason alone he should be made leader.

^ I agree Corbyn is the principled one but as I said I fear that if elected Leader he will only appeal to a minority of the wider electorate and Labour will be unelectable in a General Election.

Of course and tony blair realised you could not win an election with just hardline left wing policies, its why he created New labour to reach out to other sections of the electorate, the so-called 'Mondeo man", but in doing so they abandoned their traditional supporters and forgot what the party was really supposed to stand for. Burnham, Cooper And Kendall have absolutely no interest in what the grass root party members want, they are only concerned with getting elected. In the long run Labour may have to take a step back and try to regain the trust of the people they were so readily prepared to throw away.

Problem is what corbyn believes majority of the electorate doesnt want to hear

^Which is a pity and a sad reflection on the state of the Uk

to win general elections you have to do it from the "centre ground" then when in power then move to the left or right.

there is a real possibility of the labour party splitting.

Yvette cooper her problem is that she is married to ed balls, andy burnham is the union man, liz kendall too tory like for labour also boring, corbyn too lefty for labour.

the tories have a good range of people to take over when Cameron stands down where has labour has no one of any leadership quality.

also one of labour's problems, I think no one has seen it unless they have watched the election results, is that the majority of the party are London or southern seats which will put voters from the north off from voting for them.

What labour needs is someone who has served their time and paid their dues, someone who has had a real job and worked for a living, a leader who understands the concerns of the grass root members and does not just dismiss them as bigots, little englanders or simply unable to see the big picture. Miliband like many of his metropolitan elite, studied politics at university and virtually walked into a political career without ever having had a job, that led to a serious disconnection with the working man. Out of the four candidates Corbyn is the closest to a traditional labour mp, so it stands to reason that many party members are voting for him.

Well Corbyn has been an MP since 1983 so if he has had "a real job" it's a long time ago now.

I believe he was a local councillor before he became an MP, he also spent 2 years doing volunteer work abroad for the VSO.